


Stardust

by everheartings



Series: Asterism [1]
Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Magical Realism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-02
Updated: 2013-09-02
Packaged: 2017-12-25 08:56:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/951163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everheartings/pseuds/everheartings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grantaire never intended to catch a falling star.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stardust

Grantaire doesn’t consider himself an astronomer, not even an amateur one. He owns telescopes, can name constellations and star systems, but when Jehan asks, “You’re quite the astronomer, aren’t you, R?” Grantaire just shakes his head. “I just like looking at the stars,” he replies. Takes another drink. Casts his gaze out to the sky (it’s where his eyes go most nights. Up and up until they rest on one star that shines brighter than the rest).

If someone asks Grantaire if there is something special about that star, or any star, he laughs. No, stars are not _special_. There is a whole sky of them of course (but some fall. Those, _those_ are the special ones. But only a few know that).

Grantaire does not set out to catch a falling star on that April evening. He’s a little bit drunk and a little bit lonely. His eyes are cast up to the sky, fixed on _his_ star (he knows it’s his, he can feel that is belongs to him deep in his bones). He does not think of what might happen if it just dropped from the sky. It isn’t something most people think about (they do not know the souls of stars, cannot chart out their ebb and flow. Grantaire can).

But then Grantaire sees his star drop from its place and his heart leaps up into his throat. He’s running before he can really stop himself. There’s a cracked bottle left behind to roll across the pavement. He doesn’t think about what might happen (he might miss, it might burn him to a crisp, he might catch it). He just traces its path in the sky and he runs.

Then he’s beneath it and his arms are stretched wide and it’s bright and burning and Grantaire wonders if he’ll die like this, burned up and consumed by his star.

Then it ends as quickly as it came, night air dark and cool once again (except this time there’s a gold haired, blue eyed man curled in Grantaire’s grasp).

“Um,” Grantaire says, staring down at the man (the star) in front of him. He swallows, his throat thick. The man looks up at him, fingers wrapped tight around Grantaire’s arms. The man coughs—bright dust fills the air, then fades into nothing.

Grantaire’s seen it before (Jehan and Éponine had caught Montparnasse one night in the pouring rain. Jehan had burned the skin off his hands and Éponine still has the imprint of lips imprinted on her shoulder. Sometimes, when Montparnasse laughs, stardust drifts past his teeth).

“Can you set me down?” The man’s voice is soft. There’s stardust on his lips and smeared across his cheek.

“Oh! Um. Sure.” Grantaire sets the man down, mind still not working quite as fast as he’d like it to (somewhere beneath the shock and stardust, he can feel a prickling across his face and down his arms). The man curls forward, pulling his knees to his chest; his shoulders tremble. Grantaire swallows (Of course his star would have no clothes. Stars have no need for those silly, human things). “Here, have my jacket,” he says. He goes to offer his jacket— _oh,_ and there is the pain, roaring into him like a train (he has no jacket left to give, just tattered fabric).

“Oh.” His legs give out from beneath him; he sits down on the grass hard, breath stuttering in and out of his lungs. The man hovers over him, face twisted in worry, hands fluttering, and stardust drifting out of his mouth (Grantaire slips away to the hurried whispers of “Grantaire, Grantaire, _Grantaire_.” He does not have the peace of mind to wonder how the man knows his name).

Grantaire wakes to white walls and half-dulled pain. He swallows and tastes stardust in his mouth. He smiles (It is only later that he learns the man’s name is Enjolras and that he’s sitting outside the hospital room dressed in a pair of Éponine’s jean shorts and one of Jehan’s sweaters. He looks ridiculous, and Grantaire says so. Enjolras huffs and curls into the hard plastic hospital chair; still, his hand reaches out to touch Grantaire’s).


End file.
